ABSTRACT
JAINISM Jainism is both an ancient tradition and
a modern invention – a cumulative body
of wisdom from the hoary past as well
as a politically motivated construct.
This seeming paradox is nothing more
than a recognition that ‘traditions’ are
carried in the narratives, practices,
beliefs and experiences of real human
beings whose being-in-the-world, in
turn, shapes these traditions in new and
varied ways. The way in which Jainism
is talked about, understood, organized
and even practised is, in the con-
temporary period, novel; it includes a
degree of self-consciousness that it
probably never possessed in the past.
And yet, of course, as it establishes itself
anew, it does so on the basis of claims to
a very ancient past.
